Academic performance and achievement of a student is determined to a large extent by the socio-economic status of his family. How a child is socialised and interacts with his peers and schoolmates is a direct product of his family background, be it social, economic or educational.
A child belonging to the lower class is deficient in many things even at the time of entrance to a school as compared to his peers coming from higher class. This is because his parents, due to the lack of education, information and resources which directly stem from low socio-economic status of the family, are unable to prepare their child psychologically for school.
Such a child lacks linguistic competence as well and has command only over his mother tongue since English is an alien language at home as the parents are usually uneducated or partially educated. On the other hand, children belonging to the upper class are familiar with Urdu along with English, a language commonly used at home. Thus, they tend to excel in bilingual communication skills since their training begins at an early stage, at home. On the other hand, unfortunately, children of lower strata have to struggle at school to adopt and understand English language.
When it comes to a child's performance and participation at school, the socio-economic factors again come into play. It is a common observation that the lack of finances is a hurdle in a child's progress since it restricts the number of co-curricular activities he can participate in because such activities often require extra finances. Also, at home such a child often finds it difficult to carryout school assignments comfortably for which costly articles are required together with the fact that he has to divide his time between studies and household chores which are also his responsibility. Thus, being unable to devote his time fully to educational growth as opposed to their counterparts.
It is a known fact that children usually do what they are expected to do. Thus it is no surprise that underprivileged children tend to achieve little in life since their own parents for various reasons have expectations from them.
Along with this, the presence of funds for disposal makes access to many facilities like computer, internet, newspapers, books etc easy. Thus, such children usually tend to have greater general knowledge, enhanced confidence and broadened vision which ultimately has a positive impact on their academic achievements. Whereas, sadly the children who do not have such facilities suffer from a sense of deprivation which damages their confidence and impairs their efficiency in studies.
Yet another way in how the socio-economic status affects a child's academic life is the fact that it determines what school the child will eventually attend. While some are able to attend elite English medium institutions where not only education is imparted according to the most modern and upto date patterns, but also where the overall grooming and all areas of personality development of a child are catered to under the supervision of highly qualified teachers. On the contrary, those belonging to the lower class cannot even imagine entering such institutions. They are destined to attend such schools which lack basic facilities and have poor educational standards.
As a result of this huge gap between the educational standards of schools, children of the elite class are able to excel far more in life than their counterparts. They are able to get greater opportunities of interaction with highly qualified people and also go abroad to study.
This plays a vital role in their social development, increases confidence, eradicates shyness and hesitation from which most of the students of lower class suffer.
Such a difference between the two classes is a pathetic condition which calls for immediate attention on the part of the government, academicians, activists of civil society and human right organisations. In this regard NGOs and poverty alleviation programmes specifically meant for enhancing socio-economic status of the lower classes should be launched.
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